Red Wings’ Playoff Streak Does Matter
The Detroit Red Wings have made the playoffs for the last 25 seasons in a row. It’s a streak that other sports can’t touch. Most hockey teams can’t even come close. The Wings are tied at third on the list, with the St. Louis Blues. They only have the Chicago Blackhawks (28) and the Boston Bruins (29) ahead of them.
There’s talk that the streak could end this year. Pavel Datsyuk, the Wings’ best player for over a decade, is now gone. The team has a second-year coach in Jeff Blashill. Captain Henrik Zetterberg is now 36 years old — almost as old as his coach, who is 42 — and the years have started to take a toll.
For some, if the streak ends, it won’t matter. They argue that scraping into the playoffs isn’t that much of an accomplishment. The goal is to win it all. The Wings have done that four times during the streak, so they’re certainly not devoid of wins — like the Blackhawks, who made the playoffs for those 28 straight years and never won — but some would say watching the streak die doesn’t really matter.
But it does. Because the Wings are the model franchise now when it comes to consistency. Other teams are constantly going up and down, missing the playoffs, winning the Cup and then missing the playoffs again. Plenty of teams can get hot for one or two years. Almost none can stay consistently good, in a capped league, for three decades.
It’s also worth noting that the Wings have not been serious Cup contenders recently. They have some younger stars, like 20-year-old Dylan Larkin, but they’re clearly going through a bit of a transition. In that sense, making the playoffs does become the goal. If the Wings, in a rebuilding year without one of their main stars in Datsyuk, can still make the playoffs, that says a lot about the franchise.
It also links to the team’s identity. They’ve been told many times that the decline is coming … when Steve Yzerman left … when Scotty Bowman left. It never did.
It’s not just roster turnover. They’ve lost integral stars during this steak and still remained relevant. To see that fade could finally signal the end of an era in Detroit. Keeping it alive helps them remain as one of the best franchises in NHL history, even if they’re not the best this season, and that helps to forge the team’s identity for the young guys going forward.
The streak still lives right now, and the Wings face perhaps their greatest uphill battle to keep it alive without Datsyuk. If you’d like to see them do it in person and watch the young new stars, like Larkin, get your Red Wings tickets from us here at Headline Tickets.
